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Integrated AC97 sound vs. Diamond MX300

U

unhuman

Senior member
I have a K7S5A motherboard with integrated AC97 sound. I also have a spare Diamond MX300 sound card lying around.

This machine will probably run Win9x or Win2k.

Suggestions/opinions. Sound will be used for light gaming (MAME, NHL 2001).

Also, any opinions on how well Win9x will work with interrupt sharing on this board? The board it is replacing FIC503+ did a bad job of interrupt sharing and had problems with COM1 and COM 3 being used simultaneously....

-Howard
 
Stick it in and see which one you like better. I can almost assure you the MX300 will sound better. AC97 audio is pretty lame.
 
I've had both in my K7S5As, and I preferrred the MX300. The onboard sound was weaker - you need a stronger amplifier to get the sound out. Also, the MX300 has the additional output jack if you need one.

 


<< Mx300 all the way... It still holds up against the newer cards for 1/6 of the price. >>



I don't really agree with that. When I had a MX300 the amplification seemed really weak compared to other cards. The A3D was good and the MIDI was the best I've heard, but that's about it. When I got a Santa Cruz I spent most of a day trying to convert the MX300's waveset to a .dls file so I could use it with the SC. 😀

To answer the original question, I think the MX300 (and almost any other card) is better than onboard though still not great.
 
I also have a MX300 and AC97 integrated sound.

I've always been pretty happy w/ MX300 and continue to be. The amplification is not an problem for me
'cause I use a subwoofer/ 4 speaker setup, so I don't have an issue w/ that.

I thought about using the on-board sound, but in order to get 4 speaker output, you have to convert
the line-in jack to a 2nd line-out. That means I couldn't patch in my cd player (I use it to listen to cds
while I play games.) That would make me sad🙁

Besides, I've always liked A3D, right from the get go.
 
The real question is MX300 vs Audigy. I still vote for the MX300: best gaming sound to date (the Audigy review even admitted this).
 
Audigy not an option for me... I have the MX300 in hand, so it was just to use or not....

Problem with MX300 is it's now unsupported.... I heard M$ makes some crappy audio driver for it for XP, but that's probably the end....

-H
 
the mx300 is superior to the AC97 simply because it is an accelerator card. i have tried both and the only reason i am no longer using the mx300 is because i need a card that supports 4 speakers.
 
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